


Good things can leave scars too

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: After the goodbye, Depression, Everything is okay but sometimes it hurts, Family, Family in different forms, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, POV David Rose, Spoilers for the finale obviously, i just have a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: At first, David is tricked into thinking he’s healing, when the feeling changes. The vicious ache is fading, so he must be getting used to life without his family. Alexis is texting a little bit less, busy as she is with her New York life; his parents call when they can, but the time difference doesn’t help. But it’s good. They’re good. Everyone’s thriving.(It's not good. David struggles after his family leaves. Patrick & the rest of his found family love him through it.)
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 96
Kudos: 400





	Good things can leave scars too

**Author's Note:**

> Look. I just have a lot of feelings. This could probably have been longer but I needed to get it out of my head so I just wrote it in a quick blast today.

At first, David is tricked into thinking he’s healing, when the feeling changes. The vicious ache is fading, so he must be getting used to life without his family. Alexis is texting a little bit less, busy as she is with her New York life; his parents call when they can, but the time difference doesn’t help. But it’s good. They’re good. Everyone’s thriving.

In this way, it creeps up on him. He’s filled with a new levity. He revels in the autumn air and his new husband and he doesn’t think much of it, the first time he struggles to get up in the morning. He’s late getting to the store, but what else is new? Patrick chides him and the day goes on. 

Except it keeps happening. He sleeps through three alarms and snaps at Patrick when he jostles him to wake up. He’s fine until he’s suddenly, inexplicably weeping over fluff pieces in the local newspaper. He’s distracted to the point of messing up orders for the store. Patrick no longer scolds him for that. David wishes he would. He wonders if tough love is what he needs, to snap out of...whatever this is. Instead Patrick is so, so gentle and understanding, and David wonders if he’s messing up on purpose, just so Patrick will look at him like that and send him home early. 

It’s so gradual that he’s not even surprised when he never makes it to work. He texts Patrick that he doesn’t feel well, and he gets up to close the curtains again, and he’s still there when Patrick gets home that evening. 

“Hey,” Patrick murmurs, weight dipping the mattress. His hand rubs strong and steady over David’s hip. 

David hums a greeting. His vocal chords, like everything inside him, feel brittle and bruised. 

“Do you want to go for a walk?” 

David shakes his head, and then he’s crying, a dry, helpless thing, because he’s cried too much to produce tears anymore. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, curling in on himself, even as Patrick wraps himself fully along David’s back. “I’m so sorry, Patrick-”

“Hey, no, David, shh, you have nothing to apologize for.” 

“I’m r-ruining our new marriage!” he hiccups. “You married a - a - a wilting lily with weak nerves! I should be locked in someone’s attic!” 

“The cottage does have a little storage area, up above the bedroom, I think-” 

“I need you to know,” David says, with sudden urgency, scrabbling with both hands to turn over to face Patrick, “that this is not about you. I am happier than I’ve ever been, being married to you-” 

“Okay, well, you’re obviously not,” Patrick says, the tiniest bit of an edge to his voice. 

“I’m just being dramatic,” he promises. He wipes at his cheeks and avoids Patrick’s gaze. “I have to be extra dramatic to make up for my mom and Alexis being gone. The drama level in the town has gone _way_ down.” 

“Someone needs to do it,” Patrick agrees. He holds him a moment longer, then nudges David’s knees with his own. “C’mon, I’ll make lasagna.” 

“Mm, yum,” David hums. “I’ll be right there.” 

By the time the lasagna is ready, David doesn’t have an appetite. He sits across the table from Patrick and keeps him company, but he goes to bed before nine. 

xxxx

Patrick’s wonderful about it, absolutely perfect, and that makes David feel even guiltier. Today should’ve been their moving day. He stares at the African violet on the mantle and chews his cuticles. Patrick must’ve pushed the move back. He didn’t make the call in the apartment, at least not where David could hear, but he must’ve. Patrick has things under control. David knows that in the way he knows he doesn’t need to water the violet because Patrick keeps a schedule for that kind of thing. Patrick already does everything, here, at the store, in their relationship. David can just stay in bed and Patrick will handle everything and David feels like shit on the bottom of Patrick’s shoe. 

xxxx

“How’s David?” Stevie asks over lunch at the cafe. 

Patrick picks at his sandwich. He knows he can’t afford to not eat; he’s gotten it into his head that he’s eating for two now, which - that’s not how it works, but he wishes it was. 

“Well, he got a zit, which I hoped would shock him into moving, but. He did have breakfast this morning, though,” he reports. “So that’s progress.” It had been a single piece of toast, and David had made a face at the seeds on the crust, but he’d eaten it. Patrick will take what he can get. 

“That’s good,” Stevie nods, with the same kind of false cheeriness Patrick’s been trying to convey. “He’ll be back in no time.” 

He tips her a look that says _cut the bullshit, Stevie_ , and she sighs. 

“Look. I was hoping this would be over by now and I wouldn’t have to bring this up, but - I’ve seen David like this before. Back when you two - when Rachel-” 

Patrick blanches. “Yeah.” He tries not to think about that. He’d known David had been in a bad way that whole, long week, but so had he, so had Patrick, and it’s all just a lot of muddled pain that he tries to ignore. “What did he - how did he come out of it, that time?” 

Stevie sips her soda and considers. “I mean, the superficial answer would be that I dragged him out of bed and took him to the spa and then kept poking him about getting back together with you. He just needed time, and some reminders that you still cared.”

“The gifts, you mean,” Patrick chuckles. “Don’t think I can buy my way out of this one, Stevie.” 

“That’s because this is different.” Stevie’s tone implies she’s hating every second of being the one who understands this situation, and Patrick loves her for it. “He was depressed, but he was also really fucking angry at you, and at himself for trusting you. He had something to dwell on, something to keep the fire going. That and his love for you, which, gross.” 

Patrick feels his face start to crumple. 

“Shit! Patrick, that was supposed to make you laugh, not - oh god-” 

She hands him a napkin and he wipes his nose. He can’t believe he’s crying in the middle of the lunch rush at Cafe Tropical. “I don’t understand why that’s not enough _now_ ,” he admits croakily. He keeps thinking this, and he keeps kicking himself for thinking it. “This - this probably makes me a terrible person, but - I’m - I’m _disappointed_ , I think, that I’m not enough to get David through this. That my - brace yourself, Stevie - that my love, and David’s love for me, aren’t enough to protect him. I told Mr. Rose I would protect him.” 

“No offense to Mr. Rose, but you’ve already done a better job of protecting David than his own parents ever did,” Stevie says firmly. Patrick blinks up at her at the blasphemy - Stevie _worships_ Mr. Rose. “And no offense to you but you’ve known David, what, two years now? Sure, you guys have this amazing connection, once in a lifetime, soulmates, blah blah blah-” She mimes vomiting and Patrick laughs wetly. “But this is his _family_ . A family he craved intimacy from for his _whole life_ , a family he finally _got_ that intimacy with. He’s been living with them, eating every meal with them, for the last three years after a lifetime of not admitting he wanted that. It’s just - it’s different.” She turns her palms up on the table in a kind of defeat and supplication. “He _does_ love you, Patrick, so much. But this is a whole different ball game.” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many sentences in a row. And you gave a speech at our wedding.” He grins at her answering huff, then looks down at his sandwich again, peels up the top piece of bread. “I just wish I could do more for him.” 

Stevie chews her straw, smiling slightly. “David told me once that I made living here _survivable_. I didn’t take it as a compliment at the time, but - for David, that’s kind of high praise. Especially now. You’re making this survivable, Patrick.” 

xxxx

David goes back to the store in late September, largely motivated by the knowledge he needs to be fit to get them moved into the cottage before winter hits. He doesn’t feel any better, but he can at least feel grey and empty while standing upright and dusting shelves and applying labels. Maybe if he smiles enough, he can trick everyone into thinking he’s fine, and then he’ll trick himself into thinking he’s fine. 

His third day back, Jocelyn comes in and gives him a little wave before wandering off to browse the skin products. (He’s told her before that the toner she’s currently holding will _not_ work for her, but he just doesn’t have it in him right now to remind her.) He’s praying someone else will come in, someone from out of town who will ask easy questions and keep Jocelyn at a distance, but no luck. 

“Did I ever tell you,” she says cheerily, rounding the main display table and approaching the counter, “that I had terrible postpartum depression after I had Rollie Jr.?”

“Um.” David digs his fingernails into his palms. “No?” 

“Yeah. _Terrible_ ,” she confides, still smiling. “I was miserable for ages. And then of course I felt guilty because I should’ve been excited, I’d just had a new son! And he was healthy! Everybody told me how happy I must be. How proud. And there I was feeling terrible about all of it!” She flung her hands in the air. “What can you do.” 

“Oh.” David finds himself blinking rapidly. “That’s. I’m-” 

“Life is complicated, right?” Jocelyn sighs. “Grief comes in many forms. Good things can leave scars, too.” 

Now it sounds like she’s reading off a series of fortune cookie papers, or something, but it’s - David thinks he’s feeling something for the first time in weeks. There’s a little trembling breathlessness in his lungs. 

“How did you - how did you get over it?” he asks lightly. 

“Oh, an ungodly amount of cheese puffs,” she laughs, patting the pastel rabbit on her sweater and, presumably, her stomach. “And time. And patience, and love, from the people around me. Letting myself feel it.” 

David nods. 

“And I talked to someone,” she adds gently. “That helped too.” 

Tears itch at David’s eyelids and he rolls his gaze to the ceiling, trying to will them back in. 

“Anywho! Thanks for listening, David. Always nice to have a friend to chat with.” 

She taps the counter and heads for the door, where she pauses and glances back. 

“A professional,” she calls. “Definitely talk to a professional. Twyla will try to recommend some people she knows, but - _yikes_. Don’t go there.” 

David laughs wetly, and they wave to each other, and the bell over the door has stopped ringing by the time he realizes she hadn’t bought anything. 

xxxx

“Daviiiddd!!!” 

David rolls his eyes and covers his mouth to hide his smile as Alexis appears on the screen. “Hi.” 

“ _Hi_ ? That’s how you greet your thriving baby sister after _weeks_ of not speaking? _Hi?!_ ” 

“Oh my god, Alexis, we text _every day-_ ” 

“Yeah, and most of those texts are you complaining about things, so _excuse me_ for being excited to see your face and, like, actually _talk_ to you!” 

Patrick’s watching him from the other side of the living room - pretending not to, pretending to read his book, but doing a terrible job of it. It had been Patrick’s idea to set up regular video calls with Alexis and his parents once they’d moved into the cottage and things had settled down a bit. Sometimes they even all eat dinner as they talk, like old times. It would take more effort than it had when they’d all lived in Schitt’s Creek, Patrick had reasoned, but there were all sorts of ways to make it feel like they’re still together. 

“I’m sorry, do you mean you _miss me_?” he demands, leaning towards the screen. Alexis, obligingly, tilts backwards, as if he’s really invaded her personal space. 

“Ew! As if.” But she boops the camera, and they smile, he reluctantly, she radiantly. 

It’s their first video call, so they do a lot of catch-up, and it’s not seamless, but they each give tours of their new accommodations, and they only get a little choked up when they laugh about the tiny motel beds. Afterwards, Alexis texts him _Honestly David I’ve been having kind of a hard time and it was so good to see your face and I feel better already!! Let’s do that again soon <3 <3 <3 _. He cries in Patrick’s arms, admits he’s been feeling angry that his family can’t tell that he’s struggling. But now he knows Alexis has been struggling too and maybe they can all do better by each other. 

"Hey," he murmurs, when he's cried himself out. He tilts his head up to look at Patrick, steady, gentle, _everything_ Patrick. "Let's go for a walk."

xxxx

It gets better like that, like most adjustments do, in fits and starts, with regressions and victories. In November, Ray and Bob, who’s moved into Patrick’s old room, host a barbecue, of all things, with Ray spending the whole night running out onto the porch to do the grilling while everyone else is warm inside. It’s not normally the kind of thing David would want to attend, even at the best of times, but Ray specifically asks them to bring dessert, and David worries it’ll be a dessert-less party otherwise, and they can’t have that. He regrets going, most of the time they’re there, even with Patrick’s arm around his waist. He’s just not excited about anything they’re talking about, and he stops drinking after one glass of Ray’s mystery punch because it’s just making him feel worse, though he’s not sure whether that’s the depression or just the punch. But Ray packs ribs for them to take home, and Twyla squeezes his arm as they leave, and he supposes it’s not a betrayal of his actual family to build this, like, _new_ family for himself. 

It still hits him, now and then. The first time he stops by the motel to visit Stevie and sees a guest coming out of room 7, he nearly has a panic attack. The Jazzagals hold their holiday concert and there’s a lovely arrangement of Auld Lang Syne that’s just not quite right somehow, like it’s missing a key vocalist, and he has to leave the room because now he’s thinking about his mom. 

But it does get better, slowly. When he thinks of Alexis, he pictures her in New York, instead of at the counter at the cafe. He feels comfortable huffing and snapping at his parents again, rather than always playing nice, which had been a weird initial side-effect of the separation. He’s discovered Ronnie’s really excellent at team game play, and he’s working on patching things between her and Patrick so they can host a game night sometime soon. 

Jocelyn was right. It feels like he has scars, and while they’re all healed over, sometimes he glances at them and feels utterly devastated again, still, anew. It’s a kind of loving-and-losing he didn’t know was possible, where everyone is okay but sometimes it still hurts. 

But he’s got Patrick. And Stevie. And cords of his heart are strung across the continent like telephone wires, connecting him to his people. A pain he can live with. Life is survivable - and even, sometimes, pretty fucking wonderful.


End file.
